SWOT analysis

Introducción

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a classic business technique to analyse the internal and external environment where your organisation is operating in. The analysis helps you get insight in strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your organisation and develop appropriate strategies to reach your long-term goals.

Por qué

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This toolkit is useful for an organisation which:

• wants to match its resources and capabilities to the environment in which it operates.
• needs to formulate realistic strategies to reach the long-term goal of the organisation.

Qué puede esperarse

In six steps we will guide you to make a SWOT analysis for your organisation. Here you’ll find a step-by-step guide, tools, examples and other resources for carrying out a SWOT analysis.

Paso 1: Identify purpose

• Define how and for what the SWOT analysis will be used. This can be a simple analysis for a small project or intervention, or a more sophisticated analysis as part of a strategic planning exercise.
• Decide who will be involved in the process. A SWOT analysis is best conducted by a group of people with different perspectives and stakes in the organisation.
• Decide whether the SWOT analysis will be done as a group exercise or that team members will first be asked individually to fill in the analysis and then meet to discuss and compile the different points.
• Watch this short video to understand the goal of a SWOT and see how it can be used well for NGO-purposes.

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Paso 2: Analyse strengths

• Use this worksheet for the analysis of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats; step two to five of this toolkit. 
• Start the analysis by understanding and analysing the internal strengths of the organisation
• Ask the following questions:
  • What internal resources does the organisation have?
  • What does the organisation do better than anyone else?
  • What do supporters see as the strengths of the organisation?
  • What is the unique selling point of the organisation?
• Weigh the different factors against each other and refer only to the strongest ones, if too many strenghts have been identified.

Paso 3: Analyse weaknesses

• Move on to analysing the weaknesses within the organisation.
• Ask the following questions:
  • What could be improved?
  • What resources lack?
  • What do others do better?
  • What do stakeholders see as weaknesses of the organisation?

Paso 4: Identify opportunities

• Consider what opportunities are available or coming up, by analysing the external environment:
  • What opportunities exist in the environment that the organisation could benefit from?
  • Has there been recent changes in the environment or field of work that could create an opportunity?

Paso 5: Identify threats

• Discover any external threats or things working against the organisation:
  • Are there existing or potential competitors?
  • What factors are beyond the control of the organisation and could put the organisation at risk?
  • Are there challenges created by an unfavourable trend or development (e.g. social perceptions, policy, economy, etc)?

Paso 6: Defining Strategies

• Create a final version of the SWOT analysis, listing the factors in each category in order from highest priority at the top to lowest priority at the bottom.
• Use the SWOT Worksheet Matrix to develop strategies. Essentially, you are mapping out ways to leverage the positives to outweigh the negatives.
• Come up with ways to use the strengths to maximise the opportunities.
• Look at how the same strengths can be used to minimise the threats identified.
• Identify ways to use the opportunities identified to minimise the weaknesses and/or avoid the threats.
• Refer back to the SWOT and revise as things change and the organisation grows.

Key To Success

• A SWOT analysis should be short, simple and include only what really counts. If there are too many points, weight them against each other.
• Objective assessment of the situation.
• It is better to be a little bit pessimistic about weaknesses and threats and lighter about strengths and opportunities.

Desafíos

• Organisation may not have in-depth knowledge of what is happening in the sector or area around them.
• A thorough SWOT can be time consuming.